{"id":12184,"date":"2026-03-18T13:22:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/?p=12184"},"modified":"2026-03-18T13:22:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:22:39","slug":"alum-graduate-student-earns-grant-to-expand-educational-opportunities-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/2026\/03\/18\/alum-graduate-student-earns-grant-to-expand-educational-opportunities-for-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Alum, graduate student earns grant to expand educational opportunities for students"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_12185\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12185\" class=\"wp-image-12185 size-fusion-400\" src=\"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-400x267.jpg\" alt=\"Jennifer Fitzpatrick accepts ceremonial check in her woodshop classroom.\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-200x133.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-310x207.jpg 310w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2026\/03\/Jennifer-Fitzpatrick-SJSD-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-12185\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo courtesy St. Joseph School District<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">March 18, 2026&#8211;A Missouri Western State University alumna and current graduate student has received a $20,000 grant to enrich her woodshop class at Central High School.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jennifer Fitzpatrick \u201924, a Master of Arts in Teaching student from St. Joseph, received the grant from Sheet Metal Workers Local Union No. 2 and Kansas City\u2019s 96.5 The Fan radio station earlier this month. The grant money will be used to bring new equipment and utilities for Fitzpatrick\u2019s woodshop class and its historic St. Joseph signs project, which asked students to select a historic business from St. Joseph and recreate signs using their woodwork and design skills.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI had a lot of outreach from community members that loved the project. People wanted to buy some of the signs or wanted certain signs made,\u201d Fitzpatrick said. \u201cIt gave me the idea of how this could really expand and I saw the opportunity to apply for this grant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Read more at <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newspressnow.com\/news\/local_news\/education\/central-high-school-teacher-awarded-20-000-grant-to-help-expand-woodshop-class\/article_c2aaae09-b33b-473d-b924-30a0ce03e4bd.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NewsPressNow.com<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Missouri Western State University is a student-centered learning community preparing individuals for lives of excellence through applied learning. MoWest is located in St. Joseph, Mo., and is committed to the educational, economic, cultural and social development of the region it serves. Visit <\/span><\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">missouriwestern.edu<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March 18, 2026&#8211;A Missouri Western State University alumna and current graduate student has received a $20,000 grant to enrich her woodshop class at Central High School. Jennifer Fitzpatrick \u201924, a Master of Arts in Teaching student from St. Joseph, received the grant from Sheet Metal Workers Local Union No. 2 and Kansas City\u2019s 96.5 The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":12185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12186,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12184\/revisions\/12186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}